Page 273 of Alchemised
“You reanimated Soren. There was no surviving the blow he took.”
She went still. She didn’t know if it would be better or worse to tell Sebastian that Soren had asked her to.
“That was why he brought you, wasn’t it? I did wonder.”
Helena said nothing. Soren’s death felt like a wound too deep to even wrap her mind around. She didn’t think she could even say his name without choking.
“Is he still—nearby?” Sebastian’s voice was wistful.
Helena’s throat ached. “No. He—he’s gone. I’m sorry.”
There would be no holy fire to liberate Soren’s soul from his body. Somewhere downriver, he would decay into the earth. Lila would never see her twin again. Not even in the afterlife.
Sebastian said nothing for a long moment. “We’ll tell the others we brought them here together.”
There was blood crusted around Alister’s eyes, ears, and nose from the strain of all the transmutation he’d done. She woke him slowly, but he seized into consciousness, clawing at his neck, his eyes wild as they locked on Helena.
“What happened?” he gasped.
“We’re not sure,” Sebastian said, leaning over him. “Are you all right? We need to move before we freeze. Luc’s sick.”
“Where’s Soren?”
“Killed in combat,” Sebastian said shortly. “Marino, can you get Penny up?”
Penny’s leg was wrecked, the tendons ripped out with teeth. There was no saving it. Helena blocked the nerves and fused the bone so she could limp on it. Penny didn’t even cry when she woke, just scrubbed at her face and struggled to her feet.
Wagner was unscathed. Of course he was. Coward. At least she didn’t have to waste any of her energy healing him.
Helena tried to wake Luc. His fever was searing. He’d somehow gotten hotter in the minutes after she’d left him. She tried to cool him, but his body kept fighting it, pushing the fever higher and higher. She’d drugged him too much.
When he regained consciousness, he screamed. The noise reverberated through the tunnels.
“Knock him out!” Sebastian said, lunging forward. “Keep him cold. We’ll carry him back.”
It was fortunate they could smell clean air ahead, because Helena couldn’t have explained how she knew the route out.
Sebastian had an entangled medallion like Helena’s ring. He used it to send a pulse code to Headquarters.
A few times, they heard sounds echoing through the tunnels. Screams. Roars. Splashing. They moved quietly. Helena worried first whether Kaine could have gotten clear and then began to wonder if the reason they did not run into anyone was because he was lurking in the shadows.
When they reached the locked floodgate, Alister broke through the stone wall to get past it. A torrent of icy water rushed by. They struggled through, fighting to find stable footing as they clambered out.
A dense fog hung in the air, and a slim smuggling boat shot into view, moving silently across the water towards them.
Sebastian sighed with relief. “Althorne.”
General Althorne glared at them from the boat as it pulled to shore. His men silently slipped into the water, not even splashing as they came towards the straggling unit.
“Where’s Soren?” Althorne asked, his expression hard as Luc was carefully lifted into the boat.
“Killed in combat,” Sebastian said quietly.
One of the men was lifting Penny into the boat. Alister scrambled aboard himself, smearing away the fresh blood around his eyes with shaking hands, clearly on the verge of burnout.
Althorne looked at Luc, his expression a mixture of concern and relief. “We’ll need to keep him restrained until he’s cleared.”
Helena gestured towards Wagner. “We found him in a cell. I think Crowther wants him. Don’t trust him, he killed Sofia Purnell.”
